Around 331 Eusebius records that from the name Nazareth Christ was called a Nazoraean, and that in earlier centuries Christians, were once called Nazarenes.

Additionally, the followers of Jesus were initially called " Nazarenes " ( Acts 24: 5 ), a term perhaps used by Jesus himself.

However, since the rise of 20th century Pentecostalism, especially after 1906, there were new meanings and associations to the term — meanings that the Pentecostal Nazarenes rejected.

The frescos on the inside of the neo-Gothic church were painted by members of the artists group called the " Nazarenes ".

According to Epiphanius in his Panarion the 4th Century Nazarenes were originally Jewish converts of the Apostles who fled Jerusalem because of Jesus ' prophesy on its coming siege ( during the Great Jewish Revolt in 70 AD ).

The Nazarenes were an early Jewish Christian sect located in and about Jerusalem which proclaimed Jesus of Nazareth was the promised Messiah and the Son of God.

By the 4th century, Nazarenes were considered orthodox Christians who embraced the Jewish Law, but rejected Hebrew heresies.

The Nazarenes are generally accepted as being the first Christians who were led by James the Just, who was said to be the brother of Jesus.

However, it must be conceded that the Nazarenes in Malabar were and are either ' Mar Thomites ' or Mar Barthomolites, i. e. Nazarenes brought from mainstream Judaism by the missionary efforts of Mar Thoma and Mar Bartholomeu.

By the 4th century, Nazarenes were considered Orthodox Christians.

The Nazarenes are generally accepted as being the first Christians who were led by James the Just, the brother of Jesus.

The Jews ( Yahud ), Buddhists ( Shaman ), Hindus ( Brahman ), Nazarenes ( Nasara ), Christians ( Kristiyan ), Baptists ( Makdag ) and Manichaeans ( Zandik ) were smashed in the empire, their idols destroyed, and the habitations of the idols annihilated and turned into abodes and seats of the gods ".

However the surviving citations from Jewish-Christian Gospels ( namely Gospel of the Nazarenes, Gospel of the Ebionites and Gospel of the Hebrews ) preserved in the writings of Jerome, Epiphanius and others, lead critical scholars to conclude that those Gospels themselves either were Greek or were translated from Greek Matthew.

The Gospel of the Nazarenes, a Jewish Christian text, possesses similar themes to the Gospel of Matthew.

# The Gospel of the Nazarenes, which was read in Semitic speech and used among the Nazarenes and was similar to canonical Matthew.

The same Gospel was in use among the Ebionites, and in fact, as almost all critics are agreed, the Gospel according to the Hebrews, under various names, such as the Gospel according to Peter, according to the Apostles, the Nazarenes, Ebionites, Egyptians, & c, with modifications certainly, but substantially the same work, was circulated very widely throughout the early Church.

His polemics are, above all, directed against Judaizing Christians ( see Ebionites, Nazarenes, Judaizing teachers ).

It is also an important source regarding the early Jewish gospels such as the Gospel according to the Hebrews circulating among the Ebionites and the Nazarenes, as well as the followers of Cerinthus and Merinthus.

Jerome viewed a distinction between Nazarenes and Ebionites, a different Jewish sect, but does not comment on whether Nazarene Jews considered themselves to be " Christian " or not or how they viewed themselves as fitting into the descriptions he uses.

Jerome relates that the Nazarenes and Ebionites believed that the Gospel of the Hebrews was the original Gospel of Matthew ( Commentary on Matthew 2.

It was used extensively by the followers of Hegesippus, Merinthus and Cerinthus as well as by the Ebionites and the Nazarenes.

To distinguish various texts modern scholars generally refer to the Gospels of the Hebrews, Nazarenes, Ebionites respectively.

According to Jerome, the Nazarenes and the Ebionites regarded their version of Matthew as the original ( Commentary on Matthew 2 ).

Edward Byron Nicholson ( 1879 ) considered that the fragments showed a tradition that among the Nazarenes and Ebionites existed gospels commonly called the Gospel of the Hebrews, written in Aramaic with Hebrew letters and attributed to St. Matthew.

" A study of the external evidence regarding this gospel shows that among the Nazarenes and Ebionites existed a gospel commonly called the Gospel of the Hebrews.

Opponents of the same era include the Ebionites and Nazarenes, Jewish Christians who rejected Paul for straying from " normative " Judaism.

* Tabor, James D. " Ancient Judaism: Nazarenes and Ebionites ", The Jewish Roman World of Jesus.

From the language of many later writers who speak of Symmachus, he must have been a man of great importance among the Ebionites, for " Symmachians " remained a term applied by Catholics even in the fourth century to the Nazarenes or Ebionites, as we know from the pseudepigraphical imitator of Ambrose, the Ambrosiaster, Prologue to the Epistle to the Galatians, and from Augustine's writings against heretics.

The term " Jewish Christians " in the 3rd and 4th Centuries can refer to groups such as Ebionites, Nazarenes and other groups, and related to these groups are quotation fragments of non-canonical gospels referred to as the " Jewish-Christian Gospels ".

The word Judaizing was also used particularly after the 3rd century of the Christian Era, to describe Jewish Christian groups like the Ebionites and Nazarenes.

Most scholars in the 20th Century identified the Gospel of the Nazarenes as distinct from the Gospel according to the Hebrews and Gospel of the Ebionites.

This classification is now traditional Though Craig A. Evans ( 2005 ) suggests that " If we have little confidence in the traditional identification of the three Jewish gospels ( Nazarenes, Ebionites, and Hebrews ), then perhaps we should work with the sources we have: ( 1 ) the Jewish gospel known to Origen, ( 2 ) the Jewish gospel known to Epiphanius, and ( 3 ) the Jewish gospel known to Jerome.

Due to contradictions in the account of the baptism of Jesus, and other reasons, most biblical scholars consider that the Gospel of the Nazarenes, Gospel of the Hebrews, and Gospel of the Ebionites are three separate Gospels, even though Jerome linked the Nazarenes to the Ebionites in their use of the Gospel of the Hebrews.

# " We find that there existed among the Nazarenes and Ebionites a Gospel commonly called the Gospel according to the Hebrews, written in Aramaic, but with Hebrew characters.

Alarmed by what they perceived to be the increasing influence of “ emerging church philosophy that had crept into the Nazarene denomination ”, after August 2008 a group of church members formed an organization called “ Concerned Nazarenes ”.

They believe that “ The emergent ideology is a perversion of the Word of God and the doctrine of the Church of the Nazarene .” The group circulated a petition to members of the denomination, which was presented by 500 members to the Board of General Superintendents in January 2009, with the desire that “ Our fervent hope and prayer is that the General Superintendents will respond by purging our denomination of the emergent cancer before it is too late .” Prior to the most recent General Assembly held in July 2009, the Concerned Nazarenes advocated revising the Articles of Faith to affirm biblical inerrancy: “ Old and New Testaments are inerrant throughout and the supreme authority on everything the scriptures teach .” Further, they are concerned about the teaching of open theism and biological evolution in Nazarene universities ; invitations to emergent church leaders Brian McLaren, Leonard Sweet, and Doug Pagitt to speak at Nazarene institutions ; and the use of “ experiential works-based techniques for prayer ”, including prayer labyrinths, prayer stations and retreats to Roman Catholic monasteries.

In the 4th century Jerome also refers to Nazarenes as those "... who accept Messiah in such a way that they do not cease to observe the old Law.

The artistic achievement of the Nazarenes is difficult to evaluate ; their finished paintings appear less impressive with the perspective of history than they did to their contemporaries.

Around this time he had copied for him a Hebrew Gospel, of which fragments are preserved in his notes, and is known today as the Gospel of the Hebrews, and which the Nazarenes considered was the true Gospel of Matthew.

The Swiss theologian Ulrich Luz, who locates the Matthean community in Syria, has noted that Syrian Christians also called themselves Nazarenes.

Its authorship was attributed by some to the Apostles in general, but by very many or most — including clearly the Nazarenes and Ebionites themselves — to Matthew.

Nazarenes advertise themselves as “ a Church in the Methodist tradition ” and both Wesleyan and Nazarene churches are member churches of the World Methodist Council ( The Wesleyan Methodist Church being a charter member of that organization ).